Saturday, January 28, 2012

Jan 23 (Mon)
It was the first day of Chinese New Year and my back was still in pain. Carrying my son on my back crossing the river at Sungei Chilling had its toll on me. I was walking like a robot and could hardly walk straight. I did my physio work-outs (perhaps I should blog about it too) to alleviate the pain. It helped a lot as I always did whenever the back pain relapsed.

I wanted to go swimming as that's the only exercise that I could do in that situation and also it could help further to strengthen my back. However, the swimming pools were mostly close on Monday for maintenance.

Jan 24 (Tue)
Today, the swimming pool was open.

There are only two public swimming pools in Shah Alam. I go to both of them; Pusat Akuatik Darul Ehsan (PADE) and MSN Swimming Pool.

I am only good at breaststroke and I normally do 20 laps in the pool. I learned to do freestyle but I could never get my feet coordinated.

These days, I go to the pool with my youngest son as I want him to learn swimming and it's for him not to be scared of water.

However, as I wanted to focus on my swimming and to do 20 laps non-stop I went to PADE alone.

Yup! I did my 20 laps non-stop. My twitter friend didn't believe that I did that. My comment was in actual fact, with the right technique, swimming is slightly more tiring than brisk walking!

The operation hours of the pool and it's closed on Monday.

There are four pools in this swimming complex; two outdoor pools (Olympic sized pool and wading pool for children) and two indoor pools (Olympic sized pool and diving pool). As I was here alone, I opted for the indoor pool.

As for the ticket price, weekends and Public Holidays - RM3.50 for Adult (indoor), Tue - Fri (RM3.00). Outdoor Pool - RM2.50 (weekends and Public Holiday) and RM2.00 (Tue - Fri). The ticket counter can also be contacted at 03-5511 1648.

The toilet facilities used to be very dirty and it was okay now and when it comes to cleanliness I'd rate it as 2.5/5.

Monday, January 23, 2012

I haven't been updating this blog for ages. Somehow the urge to update it hasn't been there. I still do a lot of hiking activities. However, there was a long pause during the last monsoon season.

Just to show that that I still do the hiking activities, I have just been to Sg. Chilling Campsite over the last weekend. Below is my diary!

Jan 21 (Sat)
It was a busy day for me and I had to say 'No' to a breakfast invitation by a friend. A plumber was coming to the house and I had to send my wife's car for repair. By the time, everything was done, it was already 3.00pm. And I had to rush for last minute grocery shopping before having my lunch and doing my last minute packing.

There were four of us in this trip, my two sons and my elder's son's friend. We left at about 4pm and it was a mistake! The road was jammed from Sungei Buloh Hospital all the way to the exit of Bukit Beruntung. My only worry was I didn't want to reach the campsite when it was dark.

We had our dinner at about 8pm and dinner was roast chicken sandwich. We decided to retire early and it was a good decision and it started to rain at about 10.30pm. It was a heavy rain and it continued for about one hour. And it rained again the next morning.

Jan 22 (Sun)
We started trekking to the waterfall after having breakfast of scrambled egg, sausage and hot milo. Due to the heavy rain, the trek became more like small stream. And I could see that that the water level was high and the current was strong. Nevertheless, I wanted to give it a go.

We did the first crossing without any problem at all. And my eldest son lost one of his slippers in the strong current. It reminded me of the same incident happened to a friend in my previous trip. As for my youngest son, I had to carry him on my back to cross the river.

When we reached the second crossing, a group of 8 trekkers who were ahead of us were struggling to cross by putting up a bamboo across the river. It helped us as well but I could really feel that the current was strong and a slip could just end up being swept by the current.

I decided not to proceed and turned back as it was too risky to take my children along. We decided to have fun in the water at the campsite instead. For my children, they enjoyed themselves there. That was the important thing.

It was a good trip nonetheless. We enjoyed the camping despite the heavy rain. As for me, I had the excuse of not worrying about diet and had those camping foods!